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Kent have slammed Worcestershire after their attempt to stage their County Championship match at New Road backfired with the game abandoned as a draw after a third successive day was lost due to the state of the ground.

Worcestershire chief executive Mark Newton took the decision to try and play at New Road just days after it was submerged by the recent floods instead of moving the four-day game to Kidderminster, where they finished there twenty20 campaign, or another outground.

The reason behind the switch was to try and prepare New Road for a lucrative day-night match on Friday, but the plan has backfired as showers added to the already sodden outfield made any play impossible.

With the game now called off as a draw, Kent director of cricket Graham Ford has lashed out at the Worcestershire officials for their decision.

"There's still a lot of water lying on the ground, quite a few puddles and a lot of slushy mud in very important areas", he said.

"The ground is probably in a worse condition now than it was on day one.

"We feel pretty let down by the whole thing, it has been frustrating and disappointing. We wanted to get out and play four days of first-class cricket in good conditions.

"First-class cricket in England is very high quality and the players deserve to play in suitable conditions, and it looks as though there was no chance of that ever being possible.

"We had other options available and we certainly feel that the game should have been scheduled somewhere else, where there could have been four days of cricket".

The ECB subsequently announced that they will be investigating the circumstances surrounding the abandonment.